I think the better question to be asking here is what superhero beginnings can you actually believe. I mean these are superheroes, with with crazy science fiction/magical super powers. When you get down to logically and scientifically analyzing them, 99% of them will not make any sense.

Batman's super power is ridiculous wealth combined with grudge against criminals from the death of his parents, so that works. Other than that?

I thought the absurd premise of the film was the collapse of the Earth's magnetic field caused by the solidliquid core no longer spinning because of ??? and that this could be remedied by setting off nukes in said core.

Next to that, magic material that withstands pressures in magma is goddamn realistic.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

So I actually watched The Core the other night, by an amazing coincidence. I'm pretty much willing to forgive it any of the technobabble since I genuinely enjoyed watching it. As far as Trashy, quasi-scientific thrillers go, it's pretty far up there.

I also watched the remake of The Wicker Man, so by comparison it seemed like a god-damn MASTERPIECE.

Superhero discovers powers and thinks they're cool, but doesn't use them responsibly. Suddenly, his father-figure dies, probably at the hands of a criminal, maybe even a super-villian. Hero dedicates his life to finding crime. Optional time period of discovering who he is before starting to fight crime.

Hmmm...well, I guess I've only seen the Christopher Reeve Superman movie...that's what I was referring to. I always just thought it was a standard comic hero thing to start off with the death of a father figure...Now I feel sheepish

EDIT: So I just had to figure this out for myself. I used Comic Vine to find the most popular comic book superheroes by appearance at this site http://www.comicvine.com/characters/. Then I used wikipedia to research what I didn't already know about the superheroes' origins. Here's all of the superheroes who lost parental figures before becoming superheroes:

Superman: Biological father and mother both die when superman is still young. in addition, silver age and bronze age accounts of superman's origin have his adopted parents dying before he becomes SupermanBatman: Father and Mother killed in front of his eyes at young ageSpider-Man: Uncle Ben murdered, partially at the fault of Spider-ManRobin: Dick Grayson's parents killed by criminalsThe Thing: Older brother killed when he is 8 (Bit of a stretch...)Human Torch: Lost his mother in car accident, father driven to alcoholism (Again, a stretch)Invisible Girl: Same as Human TorchCyclops: Parents die in a plane crashStorm: Parents killed by a jet crash

Batman loses parents at age 8 when he was far too young to do anything to prevent the problem and as a result dedicates his life to always preventing the problem via becoming some ubermensch. Were it not for his parent's death, he'd likely just be an intelligent wealthy man. Getting robbed by the Joker every other week.

Spiderman gets awesome powers and fucks around for a bit. He refuses to stop a criminal, and said criminal goes on to kill Uncle Ben. When he discovers that he could have easily stopped the guy and Uncle Ben wouldn't be dead, he becomes a crimefighter.

Batman - There was absolutely nothing he could have done, except die. Also, all *powers* are a direct result of parent's death.Spiderman - If he wasn't being a lazy asshole, Uncle Ben would still be alive. All powers have jack and shit to do with anyone dying.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.

Zohar wrote:And it's the same for the other people as well. The common link you're finding is "dead parents", not "negligent or irresponsible use of powers".

There's also a high correlation between dead parent(s) and being a professional writer. And writers, lazy bastards that we are, tend to base stories on life experiences. danielnairn may have stumbled onto something here (though I'm far too lazy to do any cross-referencing).

Spoiler:

LE4dGOLEM wrote:Now you know the difference between funny and sad.

Ubik wrote:But I'm too fond of the penis to let it go.

gmalivuk wrote:If you didn't want people to 'mis'understand you, then you probably should have tried saying something less stupid.

While it deserves some credibility for being built up so long, and for making us figure it out ourselves instead of just shoving it in our faces (most of the time), I always felt that Refrigerator Woman's background story sucked.

The X-gene makes more sense than the idea that there are hundreds of independent mutations possible, any of which would produce a viable organism with special abilities that ignore the laws of physics.

If you posit the existence of a protein which can provide access to some external power source, then the X-gene would simply be the gene that codes for that protein.

The other obvious possibility for the "X-gene" is that it isn't a gene at all - rather that it's a high-level control code in the DNA that changes the interpretation of other bits of the genome.

Of course, either way, you still need to explain why the rest of the structure is there for the energy to be useful - and the standard answer there seems to be deliberate genetic engineering (either by sufficiently advanced ancient aliens, or by the US government)...

Small list of heroes and heroines whose origins stories I don't even believe in.

Wander Woman: She's... a goddess made by Zeus or whoevs... and she fights crime? As an immortal, invulnerable, super-tough GODDESS? Someone call the fiction police she just broke the Goddess Mode too perfect rules right meow.

Spider-Man: He bit by a radioactive arachnid. And then he doesn't get cancer and instead gets wild super powers? I just, like, can't believe that would happen. RADIATION does Not give super powers.

Bat Man: He a rich billionaire playboy... w/copious mommy and daddy issues... and he uses ALL his monies for good purposes, he never kills any criminals? What if they just keep escaping from jail over and over and try to Kill Him Dead, over, and over?

Charlie Puth wrote:I'll admit I was wrong what else can I say girl? Can't you blame my head and not my heart?

O-Ren Ishii wrote:Look at me Boss Matsumoto... look at my eyes. Do they look like the eyes of someone you killed?

Not saying I find any of these more unbelievable than any of the others, just thought I'd mention them. (Also Bananaman, Superted, Supergran, Desperate Dan, Dan Dare (ok, not 'super'), Spare Parts Kitt…)

Trying to think of what would be an actually realistic superhero origin leads me to the problem that, with the exception of being some kind of stranded sole survivors of a whole civilization of superbeings, basically anything that might give one person superpowers would be available to also give others superpowers, so it really wouldn't be so much this one superhero's origin story as a civilization-wide story of the rise of a new technology or something.

E.g. Iron Man really shouldn't be considered anything particularly special in his universe, because his tech is widely replicable/replicated, and with the AI and remote control he's got there's basically no reason for him to ever bother actually wearing the suit, or for the suits to be man-shaped in that case, so basically Tony Stark should just be the inventor of some kind of fancy drone and that's it. Why is he a superhero?

Tony Stark... may be handsome, and know how to chat up re: ladies but... yes, he's just a man and if he can remote control his iron suit? Unbelievable he'd ever need to get in it. And I think a believable hero or heroine would be: Someone like Faith from Buffy: She abused, neglected, got an imaginary Watcher in her head. And she don't make much money. So she fights crime all by herself like a lady. And hates hates Buffy Summers to death and oblivion. </3 No love from Faith to Elizabeth Summers.

Charlie Puth wrote:I'll admit I was wrong what else can I say girl? Can't you blame my head and not my heart?

O-Ren Ishii wrote:Look at me Boss Matsumoto... look at my eyes. Do they look like the eyes of someone you killed?